I am content to be whatever does not militate against your affection for me.... I had a long letter from dear A——, a day ago, from Weybridge. She is quite well, and says my mother is as happy as the day is long, now she is once more in her beloved haunts. I love Weybridge too very much.... It seems to me that memory is the special organ of pain, for even when it recalls our pleasures, it recalls only the past, and half their sweetness becomes bitter in the process. I have a tenacious and acute memory, and, as the phrenologists affirm, no hope, and feel disposed to lament that, not having both, I have either. The one seems the necessary counterpoise of the other; the one is the source of most of the pain, as the other is of most of the pleasure, which we derive from the things that are not; and I feel daily more and more my deficiency in the more cheerful attribute....
You have been to the Opera, and seen what even one's imagination does not shrug its shoulders at; I mean Madame Pasta. I admire her perfectly, and she seems to me perfect. How I wish I had been with you! And yet I cannot fancy you in the Opera House; it is a sort of atmosphere that I find it difficult to think of your breathing.... I wish you had not asked me to write verses for you upon that picture of Haydon's "Bonaparte at St. Helena." Of course, I know it familiarly through the engraving, and, in spite of its sunshine, what a shudder and chill it sends to one's heart! It is very striking, but I have neither the strength nor concentrativeness requisite for writing upon it. The simplicity of its effect is what makes it so fine; and any poetry written upon it would probably fail to be as simple, and therefore as powerful, as itself. I cannot even promise you to attempt it, but if ever I fall in with a suitable frame of mind for so bold an experiment, I will remember you and the rocks of St. Helena. "My lady" (an Italian portrait on which I had written some verses) "Mia Donna," or "Madonna," more properly to speak, was a most beautiful Italian portrait that I saw, not in Augustin's gallery, but in a small collection of pictures belonging to Mr. Day, and exhibited at the Egyptian Hall. Sir Thomas Lawrence told me when I described it to him, that he thought it was a painting of Giordano's. It was a lovely face, not youthful in its character of beauty; there is a calm seriousness about the brow and forehead, a clear, intellectual severity about the eye, and a sweet, still placidity round the mouth, that united, to my fancy, all the elements of beauty, physical, mental, and moral. What an incomparable friend that woman must have been! Why is it that we rejoice that a soul fit for heaven is constrained to tarry here, but that, in truth, the fittest for this is also the fittest for that life? For it seems to me more natural not to wish to detain the bright spirit from its brighter home, and not to sorrow at the decree which calls it hence to perfect its excellence in higher spheres of duty....
I think a blight of uncertainty must have pervaded the atmosphere when I was born, and penetrated, not certainly my nature, but my whole earthly destiny, with its influence; from my plans and projects for to-morrow on to those of next year, all is mist and indistinct indecision. I suppose it is the trial that suits my temper least, and therefore fits it best. It surely is that which "willfulness, conceit, and egotism" find hardest to endure. Yesterday I determined so far to escape from, or cheat, my destiny as to have a peep into futurity by the help of a gypsy. Riding with my father, and the whole hour, time, day, and scene, were in admirable harmony: the dark, sunburnt face, with its bright, laughing eyes and coal-black curls and flashing teeth; the old gateway against which she was leaning; the blue summer sky and sunny road skirted with golden corn-fields—the whole picture in which she was set was charming.
"I know it is a sin to be a mocker;"
and I am sure I need not tell you that I am sincerely grateful for all the kindness and civility that is bestowed upon us wherever we go.... What with riding, rehearsing, and acting, my days are completely filled. We start for Plymouth to-morrow at eight, and act "Romeo and Juliet" in the evening, which is rather laborious work. We play there every night next week. When next I write I will tell you of our further plans, which are at this moment still uncertain....
Affectionately yours,
F. A. K.
[These were the days before railroads had run everything and everybody up to London. There were still to be found then, in various parts of England, life that was peculiar and provincial, and manners that had in them a character of their own and a stamp of originality that had often quite as much to attract as to repel. Men and women are, of course, still the same that sat to that enchanting painter, Jane Austen, but the whole form and color and outward framing and various countenance of their lives have merged its distinctiveness in a commonplace conformity to universal custom; and in regard to the more superficial subjects of her fine and gentle satire, if she were to return among us she would find half her occupation gone.]
Monday, August 1st.—I got some books while waiting for the coach, and we started at half-past eight. The heat was intolerable and the dust suffocating, but the country through which we passed was lovely. For a long time we drove along the brow of a steep hill. The valley was all glorious with the harvest: corn-fields with the red-gold billows yet untouched by the sickle; others full of sunburnt reapers sweeping down the ripe ears; others, again, silent and deserted, with the tawny sheaves standing, bound and dry, upon the bristling stubble, on the ground over which they rippled and nodded yesterday, a great rolling sea of burnished grain. All over the sunny landscape peace and prosperity smiled, and gray-steepled churches and red-roofed villages, embowered in thick protecting shade, seemed to beckon the eye to rest as it wandered over the charming prospect. The white-walled mansions of the lords of the land glittered from the verdant shelter of their surrounding plantations, and the thirsty cattle, beautiful in color and in grouping, stood in pools in the deeper parts of the brooks, where some giant tree threw its shadow over the water and the smooth sheltered sward round its feet. In spite of this charming prospect I was very sad, and the purple heather bordering the road, with its thick tufts, kept suggesting Weybridge and the hours I had lately spent there so happily.... To shake myself I took up "Adam Blair;" and, good gracious! what a shaking it did give me! What a horrible book! And how could D—— have recommended me to read it? It is a very fine and powerful piece of work, no doubt; but I turned from it with infinite relief to "Quentin Durward." Walter Scott is quite exciting enough for wholesome pleasure; there is no poison in anything that he has ever written: for how many hours of harmless happiness the world may bless him!
At Totnes we got out of the coach to shake ourselves, for we were absolute dust-heaps, and then resumed our powdery way, and reached Plymouth at about four o'clock. As we walked up toward our lodgings, we were met by Mr. Brunton, with the pleasing intelligence that those we had bespoken had been let, by some mistake, to another family. Dusty, dreary, and disconsolate, I sat down on the stairs which were to have been ours, while Dall upbraided the hostess of the house, and my father did what was more to the purpose—posted off to find other apartments for us; no easy matter, for the town is crammed to overflowing. In the mean time a little blue-eyed fairy, of about two years old, came and made friends with me, and I presently had her fast asleep in my lap. After carrying my prize into an empty room, and sitting by it for nearly half an hour while it slept the sleep of the blessed, I was called away from this very new interest, for my father had succeeded in finding house-room for us, and I had yet all my preparations to make for the evening.